Yesterday, ThinkProgress noted that at least 11 Republican members of Congress have advanced the false claim that a cap-and-trade proposal currently before Congress would cost American families over $3,000 in extra energy taxes per year. They base their claim on a 2007 MIT study. In fact, that study actually says any tax burden would be about one-fortieth of what the Republicans claim.

Since yesterday, at least eight more GOP members have joined their ranks in advancing the false claim. Some have repeated the exact same line GOP Reps. Paul Broun of Georgia and Jason Chaffetz of Utah both said the budget “opens the door to a national energy tax that will cost every family at least $3,128 a year”, while others like Rep. Paul Ryan R-WI have increased the alleged tax to $4,500. Watch the compilation:

via Think Progress » Joining Their 11 Colleagues, Eight More Republicans Advance Cap-And-Trade Tax Myth.

BEIJING, March 13 (Reuters) – Premier Wen Jiabao held out the prospect of extra stimulus spending if needed to hit China’s 8 percent growth goal this year and called on Washington to ease worries Beijing has about the safety of its vast U.S. assets.

In his annual news conference ending the nine-day session of China’s ceremonial parliament, Wen on Friday reaffirmed China’s commitment to keeping the yuan broadly steady and noted that the currency, far from having depreciated, had been rising in value.

Wen, who fielded questions for well over two hours, said the 8 percent growth target was a measure of his government’s confidence and a reflection of its commitment to keep raising living standards. But he said the task was not easy.

“I believe that there is indeed some difficulty in reaching this goal. But with effort it is possible,” Wen said.

via UPDATE 5-China may spend more to get growth, worries over US | Reuters.

VOICES: Southern oligarchy and the labor unions

Cheap labor. Even more than race, it’s the thread that connects all of Southern history — from the antebellum South of John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis to Tennessee’s Bob Corker, Alabama’s Richard Shelby and the other anti-union Southerners in today’s U.S. Senate.

It’s at the epicenter of a sad class divide between a desperate, poorly educated workforce and a demagogic oligarchy, and it has been a demarcation line stronger than the Mason-Dixon in separating the region from the rest of the nation.

The recent spectacle of Corker, Shelby and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky leading the GOP attack on the proposed $14 billion loan to the domestic auto industry — with 11 other Southern senators marching dutifully behind — made it crystal clear. The heart of Southern conservatism is the preservation of a status quo that serves elite interests.

via ISS – VOICES: Southern oligarchy and the labor unions.

Jon Stewart’s blasts at the misleading advice offered over the last year by financial network CNBC have been a comedy staple on The Daily Show for over a week. But not everybody is laughing — and now one former congressman is suggesting that CNBC’s Jim Cramer should be investigated for possible stock market manipulation when he was the manager of a large hedge fund.

“I think he’s become a poster child for why hedge funds need more regulation and transparency,” former Virginia Representative Tom Davis told CNN on Thursday.

Davis’s remarks were sparked by a video from 2006, which has now gone viral, in which Mad Money host Cramer explained on his own website how he could influence stock prices a hedge fund manager.

“You take a bunch of stocks and make sure that they’re higher,” Cramer suggests in the video. “Maybe commit five billion in capital to it. … No one else in the world would ever admit that, but I don’t care.”

When asked, “Is any of this illegal?” Davis replied, “It wasn’t, but it should be.”

via The Raw Story | Former GOP Rep. wants Cramer ‘looked at’ for market manipulation.

“I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it’s not a … game,” Stewart told Cramer, adding in an expletive during the show’s Thursday taping. The episode was scheduled to air at 11 p.m. EDT on Comedy Central.

It was perhaps the hardest lashing Stewart has given to a TV commentator since 2004 when he called Tucker Carlson and his then co-host Paul Begala “partisan hacks” on CNN’s “Crossfire,” the since canceled political commentary program.

The program opened in mock hype of the confrontation, which caught headlines through the week as each snipped at the other over the air. The show announced it as “the weeklong feud of the century.”

via Jim Cramer On “Daily Show”: Jon Stewart Hits Hard.

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The former chairman of the Cook County Republican Party denies he was with two prostitutes when his wife allegedly attacked him over the weekend.

Palatine Township GOP committeeman Gary Skoien (SKOY’-ehn) said Wednesday that two female friends were at his Inverness home around 1 a.m. Sunday when his wife assaulted him.

A report filed by a Barrington-Inverness police officer says Eni Skoien found her husband in the children’s playroom with two prostitutes. But Skoien disputes the report and says he’s working to correct it.

The report says Eni Skoien allegedly swung a toy guitar at her husband and punched him. Police say she’s charged with misdemeanor domestic battery and a 21-day restraining order was issued.

Gary Skoien isn’t charged with a crime.

via Gary Skoien, Former Cook County GOP Chair, Beaten By Wife After Being Found With Prostitutes: Police Report.

SAN FRANCISCO – Driven by global warming, the ocean is expected to rise nearly 5 feet along California’s coastline by the end of the century, hitting San Francisco Bay the hardest of all, according to a state study released Wednesday.

[Runways along the bay at SFO could be under water by the end of this century. (Michael Macor / The Chronicle) ]Runways along the bay at SFO could be under water by the end of this century. (Michael Macor / The Chronicle)

Nearly half a million people and $100 billion in property, two-thirds of it concentrated around the bay, are at risk of major flooding, researchers found in the most comprehensive study to date of how climate change will alter the state’s coastal areas.

Rising seas, storms and extreme high tides are expected to send saltwater into low-lying areas, flooding freeways, the Oakland and San Francisco airports, hospitals, power plants, schools and sewage plants. Thousands of structures at risk are the homes of low- and middle-income people, the study said.

Vast wetlands that nourish fish and birds and act as a buffer against flooding will be inundated and could turn into dead pools. Constructing seawalls and levees, if needed, could cost $14 billion plus an annual maintenance cost of $1.4 billion, the study said.

The study shows a greater sea-level rise for California than previous studies because it takes into account recent changes in glaciers and ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland.

via Ocean Expected to Rise 5 Feet Along Coastlines | CommonDreams.org.

Americans spend a lot more than top countries, but aren’t as healthy

WASHINGTON – If the global economy were a 100-yard dash, the U.S. would start 23 yards behind its closest competitors because of health care that costs too much and delivers too little, a business group says in a report to be released Thursday.

The report from the Business Roundtable, which represents CEOs of major companies, says America’s health care system has become a liability in a global economy.

[Dr. Jason Greenspan (L) and emergency room nurse Junizar Manansala, seen here on January 28, 2009, care for a patient in the ER of Mission Community Hospital, California. (AFP/Getty Images/File/David Mcnew)]Dr. Jason Greenspan (L) and emergency room nurse Junizar Manansala, seen here on January 28, 2009, care for a patient in the ER of Mission Community Hospital, California. (AFP/Getty Images/File/David Mcnew)

Concern about high U.S. costs has existed for years, and business executives – whose companies provide health coverage for workers – have long called for getting costs under control. Now President Barack Obama says the costs have become unsustainable and the system must be overhauled.

Americans spend $2.4 trillion a year on health care. The Business Roundtable report says Americans in 2006 spent $1,928 per capita on health care, at least two-and-a-half times more per person than any other advanced country.

In a different twist, the report took those costs and factored benefits into the equation.

via Report: US Health Care System Is a Liability | CommonDreams.org.

by Robert Kuttner

This economic crisis doesn’t have to be a second Great Depression – if government does nearly everything right, and soon. But if government doesn’t do more, and fast, this could be worse than the 1930s. Why? Three big reasons:

Finance: A Doomsday Machine. The financial system is in far worse shape than it was when the stock market crashed in October 1929. In the 1920s, there was a stock market bubble, mainly because people could play the market “on margin,” borrowing to invest in stocks. There were also scams like the original Mr. Ponzi’s. Like in the present decade, the Federal Reserve helped to enable the game, with low interest rates and few rules.

But today, thanks to “securitization” of loans and the ability of insiders to create exotic and unfathomable financial instruments, the speculative system makes buying stocks on margin look like child’s play. In the aftermath of the crash of 2008, the process of sorting it all out and getting banks functioning again is something that markets simply cannot do.

We are not even clear who owns what. The wise guys on Wall Street invented a doomsday machine from which there is no market escape.

In 1929 when the stock market crashed, the banking system was relatively healthy. Bank customers played these speculative games and took the losses, not banks. This time, the banks drank their own Kool-aid.

It took until the awful winter of 1932-’33 for the general depression to fully infect the banking system, and cause over 7,000 banks to fail. But Roosevelt’s cure – deposit insurance and a temporary bank holiday to sort out good banks from bad – quickly got the financial system up and running again. Today, the banking mess is still dragging down the real economy, with no effective cure in sight.

via Surviving the Great Collapse | CommonDreams.org.

Constantly rising demand for a finite resource raises risk of political upheaval and economic stagnation over next 20 years, report says

by Martin Mittelstaedt

The world faces a bleak future over its dwindling water supplies, with pollution, climate change and rapidly growing populations raising the possibility of widespread shortages, a new report compiled by 24 agencies of the United Nations says.

[Afghan children are seen collecting water from a hand pump near Shuhada lake in Kabul. Surging population growth, climate change, reckless irrigation and chronic waste are placing the world's water supplies at threat, according to a landmark UN report. (AFP/Shah Marai)]Afghan children are seen collecting water from a hand pump near Shuhada lake in Kabul. Surging population growth, climate change, reckless irrigation and chronic waste are placing the world’s water supplies at threat, according to a landmark UN report. (AFP/Shah Marai)

The warning from the UN is based on one of the most comprehensive assessments the global body has undertaken on the state of the world’s fresh water and was commissioned for use at a major international water conference being held next week in Istanbul.

“Today, water management crises are developing in most of the world,” the report says, citing a single week in November of 2006 when there were local news reports of shortages in 14 countries, including parts of Canada, the United States and Australia.

via UN Warns of Widespread Water Shortages | CommonDreams.org.

Officials supposed to protect public near toxic sites deny risks, report says

The federal agency charged with protecting the public near toxic pollution sites often obscures or overlooks potential health hazards, uses inadequate analysis and fails to zero in on toxic culprits, congressional investigators and scientists say.

[A sign is posted at an ongoing cleanup pump and treatment center operated by Shaw Corp. at Camp Lejeune, N.C., that treats an underground plume of TCE, or trichloroethylene, created years earlier by a waste disposal site on base that contaminated the water. (Gerry Broome / AP) ]A sign is posted at an ongoing cleanup pump and treatment center operated by Shaw Corp. at Camp Lejeune, N.C., that treats an underground plume of TCE, or trichloroethylene, created years earlier by a waste disposal site on base that contaminated the water. (Gerry Broome / AP)

A House investigative report says officials from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry “deny, delay, minimize, trivialize or ignore legitimate health concerns.”

Local communities have voiced frustration and confusion at findings by the agency that are challenged by outside scientists or are ambiguous about whether people living near industrial pollution or toxic dumps or breathe foul-smelling air have reason to worry.

“Time and time again ATSDR appears to avoid clearly and directly confronting the most obvious toxic culprits that harm the health of local communities throughout the nation,” said the report from the House Science and Technology investigations and oversight subcommittee.

via Probe: Federal Agency Ignores Health Hazards | CommonDreams.org.

The following suggestions should be considered as part of a new plan to recover American industry and economic health:

· Appoint an economic minister, a major cabinet post, to develop an industrial policy that would:

1. Create conditions to make manufacturing competitive and profitable through tax changes and subsidies where needed

2. Protect our economy from foreign predatory practices

3. Create an industrial research and development division similar to government sponsored National Institute of Health (NIH) in medicine or the Apollo project

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Renowned economist Peter Morici told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that the current financial crisis had its roots in trade policy and the actions of foreign governments, according to a copy of his statement provided by the Web site TradeReform.org.

Testifying before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, Morici told its members that the U.S. economy is on the verge of a depression mainly due to America’s exploding trade deficit and China’s managed trade policies which allow the country to flood U.S. markets with its products.

The main tool China uses to maintain its huge trade surplus with America is its well-known practice of currency manipulation. By purposely undervaluing the yuan, China artificially forces the price of its exports down, making them all the more appealing to consumers in America. Unfortunately, if American consumers are buying Chinese products, they are not buying American products.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

WASHINGTON — Tom Hanks’ new movie, “Angels and Demons,” tells of a secret plot to blow up the Vatican and everyone inside it by using “the most terrible weapon ever made”: anti-matter.

As “Star Trek” fans know, anti-matter is the mirror image of ordinary matter, identical except that its electrical charge is reversed, like the opposite ends of a battery.

Discovered in 1932, anti-matter is sometimes called the “evil twin” of the familiar matter that makes up rocks, chairs, earth, air, water and living bodies.

via Scientists harness anti-matter, ordinary matter’s ‘evil twin’ | McClatchy Washington Bureau.

Author of definitive report on climate change sounds ominous new warning

Lord Stern, the economist who produced the single most influential political document on climate change,says he underestimated the risks of global warming and the damage that could result from it.

The situation was worse than he had thought when he completed his review two-and-a-half years ago, he told a conference yesterday, but politicians do not yet grasp the scale of the dangers now becoming apparent.

“Do politicians understand just how difficult it could be, just how devastating rises of 4C, 5C or 6C could be? I think, not yet,” Lord Stern posed to the meeting of scientists in Copenhagen.

via Lord Stern on global warming: It’s even worse than I thought – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent.

Fleischer Defends Iraq Invasion: After 9/11, ‘How Could We Take A Chance’ That Saddam Might ‘Strike Again’?

Yesterday on MSNBC, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was back to defend President Bush’s legacy. One of the flack’s favorite subjects is the Iraq war. Last month, he went on CNN and said that Saddam Hussein — not the Bush administration — was actually “the big liar.” Yesterday he dragged out a long-recycled talking point: Saddam was behind 9/11. He also claimed that President Obama owes Bush a big “thank you”:

FLEISCHER: It was in part because of Iraq and large part because of the economy that Barack Obama won. Having said that, I also think Barack Obama should say thank you every day that he inherited a world without Saddam Hussein in it. The one thing people are going to remember the most is that he kept us safe. […]

via Think Progress » Fleischer Defends Iraq Invasion: After 9/11, ‘How Could We Take A Chance’ That Saddam Might ‘Strike Again’?.

The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reports that “embattled financial giant Citigroup Inc., which has received at least $50 billion in federal bailout funds, hosted a private conference call on Wednesday to build opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act.” On Tuesday, Citigroup downgraded its rating of Wal-Mart from buy to hold, citing fears that EFCA could pass. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said earlier this week that “fierce resistance from Republicans and business groups could force him to delay action” on the measure.

via Think Progress » Citigroup mobilizes against Employee Free Choice Act..

bushcanadaweb2.jpgFormer President George W. Bush’s first post-presidency speech will take place on St. Patrick’s Day — March 17 — in Calgary, Alberta. Although organizers have declined to say if Bush will be paid, he once boasted that he hoped to make “ridiculous” money on the lecture circuit once he leaves office.

But instead of greeting Bush with open arms and (potentially) wads of cash, activists and human rights lawyers in Canada are hoping their government will greet him with handcuffs — or at the very least — bar him entry in to the country. In fact, Vancouver Lawyer Gail Davidson said the government has an obligation under the law to ban Bush from entering Canada because of his role in supporting torture:

via Think Progress » Canadian Lawyers Seek To Ban (Or Prosecute) Bush For His Role In Authorizing Torture.

During the campaign for chairmanship of the RNC, the candidate with the backing of far right conservatives wasn’t Michael Steele — it was former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell. In response to Steele’s flip-flopping on abortion, Blackwell told conservative blogger Matt Lewis:

Chairman Steele, as the leader of America’s Pro-Life conservative party, needs to re-read the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and the 2008 GOP Platform. He then needs to get to work — or get out of the way.

via Think Progress » Ken Blackwell smacks down Steele: ‘Get to work — or get out of the way.’.

sanford-littlefingers.jpgLast month, eighth grader Ty’Sheoma Bethea was an honored guest of President Obama when he made his address to a joint session of Congress. Bethea had written a letter to Gov. Mark Sanford (R) asking him to repair her school, JV Martin Jr High School in Dillon, SC, which was falling apart. “I felt that our school was in bad condition,” she said. “After the stimulus bill was passed I hoped we could get some of the money to rebuild the school.”

However, Sanford continues to stand in the way of Bethea’s hopes. Yesterday, in what Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) deemed “100 percent political posturing,” Sanford announced he would seek to pay down the state’s debt by redirecting $700 million of the state’s stimulus money meant for school funding and public safety:

via Think Progress » Sanford’s Rejection Of Stimulus Funds Could Cost 7,500 Teachers Their Jobs.

On his radio show last night, conservative talker Hugh Hewitt asked former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) to give his “sense of where the economy is headed right now.” Santorum replied that he had “an innate sense that America is never going to revisit the Depression era again.” “I really don’t believe we’re going to go there again,” said Santorum.

After criticizing President Obama’s “doom and gloom” predictions, Santorum declared, “I really do believe that the fundamentals of American economy is still strong”:

via Think Progress » Santorum: ‘I Really Believe The Fundamentals Of American Economy Is Still Strong’.

On Fox Business yesterday, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) joined the long parade of members of Congress who rail against earmarks while requesting their own. But Bachmann took her hypocrisy a step further, claiming that she has signed an anti-pork pledge:

CLAMAN: How about a no-pork bill? Will that ever be a reality?

BACHMANN: I think it is possible. I took a pledge in my own district. I have not taken earmarks in the last three years that I have been in Congress because the system is so corrupt. It’s possible to make that pledge.

via Think Progress » Rep. Bachmann Claims To Have Taken No-Pork Pledge, But Actually Requested $3 Million In Earmarks In 2008.

bayh.jpgRoll Call reports that a group of 15-20 “moderate” Senate Democrats — boosted by their success in “paring down the more than $900 billion economic stimulus bill to $787 billion” — plans to “formally announce next week that it is aligning as a loose coalition or working group focused on deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility”:

via Think Progress » ‘Moderate’ Senate Democrats to formally announce formation of Blue Dog-style coalition..

NEW YORK CITY-State attorney general Andrew Cuomo told a UJA- Federation of New York audience that the nation forgot a basic lesson: effective government regulation ‘helps’ the private sector and it actually encourages competition.

Cuomo was featured speaker this past Wednesday at the annual Young Real Estate Executives luncheon, or REX, at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan. REX offers opportunities for young real estate professionals to help those in need build relationships with colleagues, develop leadership skills and explore philanthropic issues beyond the city’s real estate community. This year’s honoree was Jonathon Yormak, principal at private equity firm Broadway Partners.

The attorney general told the mostly under-40 audience, “I’m trying to sort through the economic issues, the Wall Street issues” adding that problems first have to be exposed, then people have to believe you understand them and that justice was done with the problem.

Comparing the rapid spread of the current crisis to that of a computer virus, Cuomo stressed that competition in business has to adhere to rules and penalties, much like those in the world of sports. He charged that allowing competition to go unfettered much as it had been during the past eight years, got us where we are today.

via Cuomo Says Regulation Encourages Growth.

Medical reporter warns against ‘government-run health system’

In one of the few recent corporate media mentions of single-payer healthcare, CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen (3/5/09) explained why healthcare “reform” is more possible now than it was under President Bill Clinton:

Fifteen years ago you sometimes heard–actually you heard quite a bit–people saying: “Let’s have a single-payer system like in Canada. The government is going to be the health insurer for everybody.” You don’t hear that as much as you used to. So more people are on the same page more than they once were.

Cohen is right that there were many people in favor of single-payer 15 years ago; as an Extra! article from that era (7-8/93) pointed out, New York Times polling since 1990 had “consistently found majorities–ranging from 54 percent to 66 percent–in favor of tax-financed national health insurance.” The numbers today? A New York Times/CBS poll (1/11-15/09) found 59 percent in favor of government-provided national health insurance. In other words, contrary to Cohen’s claim, people are on pretty much the same page today as they were 15 years ago.

Cohen’s suggestion that it was those loud voices that stymied “reform” is likewise unsupportable; as Extra! reported back in 1993, corporate media were then solidly behind the Clinton administration’s big insurer-friendly “managed competition” plan:

via CNN: Single-Payer Is So ’90s.

Masek, a Republican from Willow who represented the Matanuska-Susitna area between 1995 and 2004, was accused by the Justice Department of accepting at least $4,000 from former Veco Corp. chief executive Bill Allen in 2003.

In return for the money, she killed an oil tax bill she had introduced after Allen told her it was “harmful” to his oil industry clients, according to the charges.

via Alaska legislator who killed oil-tax bill to plead guilty to bribery | McClatchy Washington Bureau.

By Christopher Hayes

Rush Limbaugh offers Democrats an irresistible target as the de facto leader of the Republican Party, but for my money, Rick Scott is the man who best embodies the spirit of the current conservative opposition. The name may not exactly be a household word, or it may ring a faint bell, but Politico recently reported that the millionaire Republican would be heading up Conservatives for Patients’ Rights (CPR), a new group that plans to spend around $20 million to kill President Obama’s efforts at healthcare reform.

via Healthcare Enemy No. 1.

CHICAGO/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Some U.S. public school districts are turning to mass layoffs of teachers and support staff to ease ballooning deficits in the latest sign of how the recession is hurting ordinary Americans.

The looming layoffs contrast with President Barack Obama’s pledge to improve education in the United States. On Tuesday, Obama proposed lengthening the school year and paying top teachers more. And the $787 billion federal stimulus package includes billions of dollars for schools.

On Friday, the Los Angeles Unified School District — the nation’s second largest — will issue preliminary layoff notices to nearly 9,000 staff members, including teachers.

via Schools turn to mass layoffs to ease deficits | U.S. | Reuters.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is warning his colleagues that he will shine a light on any of them who try to hold up a nominee of President Barack Obama.

Leahy, speaking on the Senate floor today, criticized the use of anonymous “holds” and other tactics that allow a senator to delay a nomination without revealing that he or she is the one doing so. Any senator for any reason can place a hold on a nominee and thereby prevent the formal debate and vote from being scheduled.

“Today, however, there will be no more secret and anonymous Republican holds. Any effort to oppose the President’s nominees — executive or judicial — will have to withstand public scrutiny. There will be no more anonymous holds,” Leahy said in his prepared remarks.

via The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times : Leahy Vows to Name Names if Nominees Are Delayed.

Intelligence experts explicitly warned Tony Blair’s aides that Britain was not in “imminent danger of attack” from Saddam Hussein, a confidential memo revealed today.

The row over claims that the Government “spun” its way into war with Iraq is likely to be reignited after the release of the document by the Cabinet Office.

The memo, released after a long-running Freedom of Information battle, shows Mr Blair’s officials knew seven years ago that the threat from Saddam was not immediate.

Despite the warning, the Government’s dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction included a claim that Baghdad was ready to launch an attack within “45 minutes”.

Lord Hutton cleared the Government in 2004 of the charge that it tried to manipulate intelligence to pave the way for war.

via Memo that told Blair aides Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat | News.

Washington, DC – Congressman Barney Frank today responded to a series of repetitive, wholly inaccurate efforts by Republicans to blame Democrats, and Frank in particular, for the failure to take appropriate action to prevent bad loans being made to people who could not pay them back.

“According to the Republican version of the history of the financial crisis, as presented on the House floor on Wednesday by Representative Todd Akin (R-MO), Congressman Frank is responsible for the fact that no legislation passed the Congress to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac until 2007, and no bill trying to restrict subprime lending passed the House between 1994 and 2007. The problem with their argument is that the Republicans were in power from 1995 through 2006 in the House, and they had complete control over what legislation did or did not pass.

“Being accused of having blocked legislation to prohibit irresponsible lending to low-income people from 1995 to 2006 is flattering in a bizarre way,” Frank noted. “Apparently those Republicans parroting these right-wing talking points believe that I had some heretofore undisclosed power over first Newt Gingrich and then Tom DeLay, which allowed me to keep them from passing legislation they wanted to pass. If that had been true, I would have used that power to block the impeachment of Bill Clinton in the House, the war in Iraq, large tax cuts for the very wealthy, the intrusion into the sad case of Terri Schiavo, and appropriations bills that badly underfunded important social priorities.

via House Financial Services Committee.

New revenues » Cigarettes are taxed, why not soda pop?

Have a Coke and a tax.

That’s what Rep. Craig Frank wants his colleagues in the Legislature to consider.

Frank, R-American Fork, has asked lawmakers over the next year to
study the potential for taxing caffeine, a response to proposals this
session to hike the tax on cigarettes – all of which failed.

Frank said his intent initially was just to target caffeinated sodas
and other cold beverages, but he has decided to look at the substance
more broadly.

“Some feel [the cigarette tax is] a tax on those who are addicted to
a substance that frankly they enjoy [but] we say that’s a harmful thing
to do.

At the same time, the government is addicted to the fee revenues,” said Frank. “So in light of that, if

via Let’s tax caffeine, legislator argues – Salt Lake Tribune.

New revenues » Cigarettes are taxed, why not soda pop?

Have a Coke and a tax.

That’s what Rep. Craig Frank wants his colleagues in the Legislature to consider.

Frank, R-American Fork, has asked lawmakers over the next year to study the potential for taxing caffeine, a response to proposals this session to hike the tax on cigarettes – all of which failed.

Frank said his intent initially was just to target caffeinated sodas and other cold beverages, but he has decided to look at the substance more broadly.

“Some feel [the cigarette tax is] a tax on those who are addicted to a substance that frankly they enjoy [but] we say that’s a harmful thing to do.

At the same time, the government is addicted to the fee revenues,” said Frank. “So in light of that, if

via Let’s tax caffeine, legislator argues – Salt Lake Tribune.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The net worth of American households fell by the largest amount in more than a half-century of record keeping during the fourth quarter of last year, reflecting the blow families are taking from a plunging stock market and dwindling home prices.

The Federal Reserve said Thursday that household net worth dropped by a record 9 percent in 2008′s October-December period compared to the third quarter. That was the biggest decline on records that go back to 1951.

The drop represented a loss of $5.1 trillion in family net worth, leaving the total at $51.48 trillion at the end of the year. Net worth represents total assets such as homes and checking accounts minus liabilities like mortgages and credit card debt.

The big blow to the family balance sheet in the fourth quarter came from the plunging stock market, which the Fed estimated slashed Americans’ stock holdings by 23.2 percent.

via The Associated Press: Household net worth plunges by record amount.

More than half the baby shampoo, lotion and other infant care products analyzed by a health advocacy group were found to contain trace amounts of two chemicals that are believed to cause cancer, the organization said yesterday.

Some of the biggest names on the market, including Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo and Baby Magic lotion, tested positive for 1,4-dioxane or formaldehyde, or both, the nonprofit Campaign for Safe Cosmetics reported.

via Probable Carcinogens Found in Infant Care Products – washingtonpost.com.

Lawmakers say House bill would improve public safety

The state would take over growing and distributing marijuana to patients in the medical-marijuana program under a bill introduced in the Legislature on Wednesday.

“Our current system isn’t working, and we need to move quickly to protect patient safety,” said Rep. Ron Maurer, R-Grants Pass.

House Bill 3274 directs the state to establish and operate a marijuana production facility and distribute the drug to pharmacies for dispensing to cardholders and primary caregivers. The bill imposes a $98-per-ounce tax on marijuana, which would cover the state’s costs of operating and securing the production center.

Lawmakers said they think the bill would improve public safety by eliminating private medical-marijuana grow sites.

via State may take over growing medical pot | StatesmanJournal.com | Statesman Journal.

As food prices skyrocket, the jobs and wages of the poorest are being devastated. But will the developed world act when it’s focused on averting a financial meltdown?

By Sonni Efron

March 12, 2009

The economic crisis has now spread from Wall Street to Main Street to the places where there are no streets.

In slums and shacks around the world, hunger is gnawing again as job opportunities shrink but food prices do not. Global cereal prices are 71% higher than they were in 2005, according to the International Monetary Fund, but the wages of many workers are falling.

via World hunger, the crisis inside the economic crisis – Los Angeles Times.

There are two ways to see Obamanomics.

The first, much preferred by the White House, is as a set of initiatives so modest as to hardly merit a raised eyebrow. Yes, steps must be taken to deal with the current economic crisis. But assuming the economy recovers next year, Obama’s budget projects that government spending by the end of the decade will drop to around 22.5 percent of GDP, which is about where it was under Reagan.

What about those tax hikes on the wealthy? Obama merely restores the top two marginal income tax rates to what they were in the 1990s, the capital gains rate to its lowest level during that same prosperous decade, and the rate on dividends to a level even lower than it was in the 1990s. And even these modest reversions to the 1990s will affect only the wealthiest 3 percent of Americans, and not until 2011. Ninety-seven percent of small businesses won’t pay a dime more. True, the very rich won’t be able to deduct quite as much as they can now for their mortgage interest and charitable donations, but this is hardly revolutionary, either. In fact, it’s another throwback — to the limits in place under Ronald Reagan. All told, taxes are projected to total 19 percent of GDP by the end of the decade. That’s even lower than it was in the late 1990s.

via Robert Reich Poses THE Question | discuss, debate, decide.

The US and China pledged to step up a high-level dialogue between the two countries which will address the global financial crisis, climate change and security issues.

Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, said the two governments would work together “to help lead the world recovery” and that she appreciated China’s continued purchases of US Treasury bonds.